Is Oregon producing too much cannabis?

PORTLAND — Oregon’s prime federal prosecutor stated Friday the state has a “formidable” drawback with marijuana overproduction that winds up on the black market and that he needs to work with state and native leaders and the pot business to do one thing about it.

U.S. Attorney Billy Williams convened the unprecedented summit of influential federal regulation enforcement representatives, state officers and marijuana business scions after Attorney General Jeff Sessions withdrew an Obama administration memo that had guided states with legalized weed on how you can keep away from federal scrutiny.

The assembly included representatives from 13 different U.S. lawyer’s workplaces, the FBI, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, the U.S. Forest Service and U.S. Customs and Border Protection. U.S. attorneys from California, Washington, Colorado, Idaho, Alaska and Montana attended in individual.

Gov. Kate Brown, a Democrat, advised visitors that Williams has assured members of her administration that “lawful Oregon businesses remain stakeholders in this conversation and not targets of law enforcement.”

The marijuana business has been watching federal prosecutors in states with legalized weed like Oregon intently since Sessions rescinded the so-called Cole memo. U.S. attorneys in states the place marijuana is authorized beneath state regulation now face the fragile query of the way to do their jobs and hew to the federal ban.

Williams sought to calm fears amongst pot growers, however stated the market has an issue that have to be addressed. Everyone wants a “bottom-line answer” on how much extra marijuana is being produced and the way much of it winds up on the black market, he stated.

Williams final month wrote a visitor column in a newspaper by which he stated the excess attracts legal networks and generates cash laundering, drug violence and attracts down water provides in rural communities.

“Here’s what I know in terms of the landscape here in Oregon, and that is, we have an identifiable and formidable marijuana overproduction and diversion problem,” he stated Friday.

Williams added: “And make no mistake about it, we’re going to do something about it.”

There is basic settlement that marijuana from Oregon does wind up in different states the place it isn’t authorized. Still, it’s onerous to say if pot smuggling has gotten worse in Oregon — the place illicit pot farmers have been thriving lengthy earlier than leisure legalization — or how much pot leaving the state filters out from the authorized aspect.

Related Articles

A brand new blockchain startup, Smoke Network, is launching that hopes to create a safer various to authorized hashish companies who’re recurrently focused by giant social media networks. Cannabis companies and communities have been focused […]

Controversy over public hashish consumption is brewing once more in the Netherlands. This time, nevertheless, it’s not the nation’s famed “coffee shops” which are in scorching water. Rather, it’s their noisy English-speaking clientele, who’ve apparently […]